Hopper: The Ghost of Quantico
by FanWriterGirl994
Summary: When the Unsub from a case that went cold 18 years ago places two agents, one from NCIS, and the other from the BAU, at risk, their teams must set their differences aside in order to save them. There are only two options left, join forces, or die...
1. Blast from an Unwelcome Past

**This is a reboot of a much older story that I wrote years ago, in accordance with the guidelines, the old version, which is already substantially different from this one has been removed. Having grown as I writer, I knew that I could do a better job. Any feedback you have is much appreciated.**

Hopper: Ghost of Quantico

Chapter 1: Blast from the Unwelcome Past

"We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately" – Benjamin Franklin

[FBI Headquarters, Quantico Virginia, Just after 11:30 PM, March 9th 2010]

It was late on a stormy Tuesday night by the time the six field agents of the BAU arrived home at Quantico's FBI headquarters, after a three-week long series of one case after another. Everyone was exhausted, happy to be back home in Virginia, and everyone was also more than ready to go home. They couldn't though, not quite yet… they had, had no time, flying from one city to the next in the past few weeks, to finish the growing piles of reports. It was the only part of their job that felt mundane, boring, the part that most people tended to do half asleep around two-thirty in the afternoon while dozing off at their desks.

It was only the team's youngest member, Dr. Spencer Reid, who enjoyed this kind of thing… he had an IQ of 187, an Eidetic memory, and could read twenty-thousand words per minute… in short, he was a genius. For him, these reports could hardly be considered an obstacle, and he knew that from the second he sat down at his desk and got to work, he'd be out the door and on his way to catch a train home to his apartment, in ten minutes or less. Or…so he thought…

Just when everyone had settled down, and the sixth floor office that acted as the Behavioral Analysis Unit's headquarters had descended into a state of near silence, as the team quietly went about their work, Reid saw his friend, the friendly, eccentric, blond-haired blue eyed woman by the name of Penelope Garcia, who served as the team's technical analyst, briskly approaching his desk with a look of poorly masked concern all over her face. She shuffled toward him in her purple platform heels, and the room was otherwise quiet enough that he could hear the mother-of-pearl beads of her long earrings clinking against each other as she walked.

He gulped as a knot of worry rose in his throat, he had no idea what news she had, but what he did know, was that whatever it was couldn't be good…and it seemed to be specifically for him.

She was big boned and a notably shorter 5'6 to his 6'2, but standing in front of his desk, looking at him like he was about to be hit by a train and she wanted to push him out of the way, she seemed almost intimidating, no…that wasn't quite right… it wasn't that she was intimidating… the unknown but clearly bad news that she had to share was… She was usually so happy and spontaneous that this change in demeanor from her caught him a little off guard.

"Reid…" she began, putting a hand on his desk, leaning in slightly in an attempt at some level of privacy and locking her eyes on his. "You…you have company…" she told him.

"Who is it…?" he asked, puzzled and growing even more anxious about who would come visit him at work, at this late hour, and what exactly they were here to tell him.

"He says that his name is Tony Dinozzo…and that he needs to talk to you asap…" she

replied.

By then, a few of the others had heard them talking.

"You know him Reid?" Morgan asked, the muscular African American crossed his arms and raised his head, a classic tell on his part that meant if this guy was here to bother his friend he would have no issue with personally removing him from the building.

"Yeah, he's an old friend of mine from high school, and a fellow federal agent, NCIS, not the Bureau, I've known the guy since I was nine…but I have no idea what he's doing here…" Reid replied, giving Garcia a questioning look.

"All he told me was that he was a friend of yours, that something had happened, and that he needed to talk to you as soon as possible." She told him.

"Where is he now?" Hotch asked, he was their unit chief, a man of average height and build with black hair and gray eyes like steel. It wasn't until he spoke that anyone had realized he'd come out of his private office on the landing above them.

"Just outside the glass doors Sir…" Garcia replied, nodding toward the doors that led out into the sixth floor corridor and the elevator.

"Bring him in." Hotch ordered, giving a low voiced, almost gentle command.

Garcia nodded and left the office momentarily, before returning with a red-faced man of average height and build with reddish-brown hair and hazel eyes, wearing jeans and an untucked, dark green, button down shirt.

"Hi Tony…" Reid said, standing to greet his friend.

"Hi Spencer…" Tony replied, he wouldn't look Reid in the eye, instead he kept his eyes cast down just enough to avoid it, and while his voice was composed, there was a sadness and an anxiousness to it that told Reid that something bad had happened.

Reid waited a moment for Tony to elaborate before asking: "So…I take it you're not here just to catch up…?"

"I wish…God do I wish it were that simple, but no…" Tony answered.

"Then what are you doing here?" Reid asked.

"Spencer, I don't know how to tell you this, so I'm just gonna come right out and say it… please don't freak out?"

"I won't freak out…" Reid assured him, though he could feel his own anxiety level rising.

"I came here tonight because…because Tim was shot earlier tonight…" Tony finally explained.

Reid was aghast, his mouth fell open and his eyes went wide with horror. "Oh my God… What happened? Where is he? Is he ok?"

"Tim…that's your cousin isn't it Reid?" Morgan interrupted.

Reid nodded. "Yes but, quite frankly we're more like brothers…" He replied, never taking his eyes off of Tony.

"This happened about two hours ago, he took two rounds to the chest, no vest, no backup, he was practically home already, he had parked his car and he was headed inside the building…. He's at Bethesda, and as far as I know he's still in surgery…" Tony explained.

Reid's eyes darted back and forth, his mind reeled from the implications of what he'd just heard. "But… I live in that building too… Tim's on the second floor, directly below me…" He replied.

"I know…" Tony told him. "and that…brings us to the other reason I came by…besides the fact that knowing how close you guys are, telling you what happened over the phone just seemed like a dick move…"

Reid gulped down the lump rising in his throat. "There's more?"

Tony nodded. "As soon as we heard about it, Gibbs and Ziva went to go and process the scene…they found shell casings from a long-range rifle of some kind, in the bushes across the street, and two bloodied rounds on the concrete just outside the front entrance, which fits with what the EMTs told us, that the shots to Tim's chest went through and through… but more importantly…Abby ran ballistics on them…" Tony began, not bothering to explain to the rest of the BAU who Gibbs and Ziva were.

"Who's Abby?" Hotch asked.

"She's the forensic scientist attached to our team…" Tony answered.

"She's also my cousin's fiancé…" Reid added, then turned back to Tony he asked: "So what did she find out…?"

"It didn't take her long to get a match…from our cold case files…" Tony replied.

"Go on…" Reid urged him.

"Spencer…the match came from the Hopper investigation…" Tony told him. "You know what that means right?"

Reid nodded in the affirmative, nervously rocking back and forth slightly, shifting his weight from his heels to the balls of his feet and back.

Most of the others just seemed confused; but agent Rossi, an aging, broadly set Italian with graying black hair and a short, trimmed beard, seemed to recognize the case Tony was talking about as well.

"What's the Hopper Investigation?" Morgan finally asked, breaking the tense silence that had descended upon the room.

It was Rossi who answered this time.

"The Hopper was a serial killer here in Quantico who was active from the mid-70s right up into the early 90s… He was a classic family annihilator who appeared to be focused on maternal figures… when he targeted a family he would stalk them for a few weeks and then when the mother, aunt, or grandmother was home alone he would force his way in and kill her in a highly specific and sadistic way… then he would leave her for her family to find. In the coming weeks or even months, he would pick off the rest of the family one by one by shooting them in the heart…"

Tony nodded. "That's right but he got the nickname 'The Hopper' because he seemed to purposely hop the jurisdictional lines between our two agencies… he would target a navy or marine family, which would fall into our jurisdiction, then he'd target a civilian family, which would be for you guys to investigate… he went back and forth like that for seventeen years and that's just what we're aware of for sure…" He added.

"Ok, but, other than Tim getting shot tonight, what does this have to do with Reid? He was like ten, he was still in Las Vegas at the time…" Morgan stated.

"Actually guys… I wasn't…" Reid began. "I never told you guys any of this, because it's not something I like to talk about but… after my dad left, Mom kinda went off the rails for a while so my Uncle Frank, her brother, Tim's dad… convinced her to send me to stay with them here in Virginia for a while… he was…and still is… an admiral, and when he's not overseas, he's assigned to the base here in Quantico…" he explained. "Eighteen years ago tomorrow, the three of us, Tim, his baby sister Sarah, and I, came home from school to find the front door wide open and my Aunt Leah dead in the living room…"

The rest of his team exchanged looks of horror amongst themselves and shot him sympathetic glances.

"And since…as Spencer said before… Tim's father was, and still is, and admiral, obviously the case fell into NCIS territory…" Tony clarified.

"The unsub was never caught?" Hotch asked.

"Nope… and believe me… the agents on the case back then did their best…but NCIS had encountered this maniac's handiwork before, they knew how this worked, so their main focus, was making sure that Leah's kids and her nephew were protected… eventually the trail went cold… Tim and Spencer finished high school and went to college…so did I, and Sarah moved with her dad to California when he was finally reassigned to a base on the west coast, although they've since returned…" Tony explained.

"Now that the Hopper is back, and clearly still after the three of us, even after all these years…you came because he's already shot Tim, and there's a good chance that I'm next…" Spencer replied in disheartened admission of what he'd known since Tony had uttered the word 'Hopper'.

Tony clenched his jaw in anger at the whole situation. On the surface, Spencer appeared relatively calm… but that was his way… if there was one thing he hated, it was showing weakness to his peers; but the fear in his golden brown eyes was unmistakable, which, Tony realized, was probably why he kept his head down, so that his wavy, shoulder-length, light brown hair, fell around his face like a curtain, hiding this from his fellow FBI agents who were standing off to both sides of him.

"So what do we do now?" JJ, the BAU's communications liaison asked. She was a small framed blond woman in her early thirties and one of Reid's best friends of all.

"Well…" Tony began. "Since Tim's the one who has been hurt already, this is still primarily an NCIS investigation…however, given the circumstances, among other things, my orders from my boss were to ask for FBI assistance…"

"You can tell your unit chief that you have it…" Hotch told him.

Tony nodded.

"I'm guessing Agent Gibbs knows about this?" Reid asked.

"Who's Agent Gibbs?" Hotch cut in.

"He's our team's current leader…" Tony replied, answering Hotch's question.

"He was also one of the agents on the original case when my aunt was killed…" Reid added.

"Yes, and to answer your question Spencer, yes, Gibbs knows…" Tony began. "He knows and he's pissed… though whether he's more angry at the Hopper for coming back after you guys, or at himself for failing to get him back in the day…well, you're the profiler, you figure it out."

"I just have one question…" Reid replied.

"What?" Tony asked.

"Where's Sarah?" Spencer demanded. He knew that if the Hopper was after one or two then he was after all three. That meant that Sarah belonged in protective custody too.

"Gibbs sent Ziva to go and get her…she's probably at the hospital by now…and actually, we should get going, just name your destination…just not your apartment, Tim was shot right outside the building, it's safe to say the Hopper probably knows you live there too, even if he doesn't it's way too big of a risk."

Reid nodded, and Hotch gave his team their marching orders.

"Reid, you, Rossi and I will go with Agent Dinozzo to the hospital, the rest of you will dig up our half of the old files and start going over them… We don't stop until we find this guy and bring him down. Reid, this should go without saying, but until this is over, you don't leave the building, NCIS, or another secure area without at least one more agent with you. That's an order. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes Sir…"


	2. We Take Care of Our Own

Chapter 2: We Take Care of Our Own

[Bethesda Naval Medical Center, 1:17 AM. March 10th 2010]

It was after one o'clock in the morning by the time Reid, Hotch, Rossi, and Dinozzo arrived in the waiting room outside the OR at Bethesda Naval Hospital, McGee had been in surgery for almost four hours.

The waiting room was pretty average, it had tope walls, dark-gray tile flooring with a large brown area rug that looked like a giant piece of carpet that had been cut too small for the room, and there were average waiting room chairs with cherry-wood legs and light, blue-gray upholstery. Agent Gibbs, the seasoned and seemingly fearless NCIS unit chief, stood in the corner, waiting for any word on his agent's fate.

Abby Schiuto, the raven-haired, blue-eyed, overly friendly forensic scientist, sat near the door that led out into the hallway, dressed in a tight, knee-length, black skirt, a dark red tank top, and a cropped, black leather jacket with puffed sleeves. Her long black hair was pulled into high set pigtails from which flowed two think braids on each side.

She didn't look up until she heard four sets of footsteps enter the room. When she saw Reid, the only one besides Tony that she recognized...she lit up. She sprung out of her chair and hugged him tightly, throwing her arms around his neck. Reid froze for a few seconds, not really expecting to be hugged by his cousin's fiancé...but hugged her back.

"Spencer...you're here... Thank God. As soon as i matched the bullets to the cold case...and then Gibbs sent Tony to find you...but it was taking so long I thought maybe something had happened to you too..."

"I did kinda have to wait for them to get back into town Abby..." Tony reminded her.

"I'm ok...but Abby..." Reid began.

"yeah?" she asked.

"You're...choking...me..." he told her.

She immediately let go.

"I'm sorry…I'm sorry…"

"That's ok…" He assured her.

"Hey Boss, any word on McGee?" Tony asked, calling out to Gibbs.

He didn't answer.

"McGee's still in surgery…there's no word…" Abby replied instead, answering Tony's question. Then she sat back down to allow the new arrivals to come further into the room.

Finally, Gibbs looked up.

"This is all my fault…if McGee doesn't make it…it's on my head…"

"There was nothing you could've done Sir…" Reid began, trying to reassure him. "No one saw this coming."

Gibbs turned to face Reid then, in a wide, combative stance, his fists clenched at his sides. The look he gave Reid said it all.

 _There sure as Hell was something I could've done…I could've got him years ago like I should have… When Franks and I took you three into protective custody I swore to all of you I'd never let this bastard within a hundred yards of any of you ever again…but I failed, and now McGee's paying for it…_

Reid spun around, looking for Sarah, Sarah was his youngest cousin, she was twenty-four, with long, wavy auburn hair, and she wore a long, navy, white, and red peasent skirt with a red blouse and a dark blue denim jacket.

Sarah and Ziva returned a moment later with sodas from the hospital cafeteria. Sarah, upon seeing her cousin who, was actually more like a second brother to her, immediately hugged him.

"Oh thank goodness… when Ziva told me what happened I…"

"Sarah, I'm here…I'm here and we're fine…you don't have to worry about me…"

 _As long as he's out there, we have to worry about all of us…_ Reid thought, though he didn't dare let on to Sarah how scared he was.

What the hell is taking them so long with McGee? Why haven't we heard anything? It's been four hours…" Abby wondered.

…

While the others sat there discussing how much longer it might be and speculating on what damage might have been done, Gibbs gave Hotch a look, and the two team leaders stepped out into the hallway.

Hotch had been observing Gibbs and his team, since he'd met them, and by now had a pretty good idea who he was dealing with.

"Agent Gibbs, I know you prefer to handle your cases, especially those involving one or more of your own agents, alone, with your own team but…" Hotch began, but Gibbs cut him off.

"But this isn't a normal case, it's not even a normal 'someone's after one of us'," Gibbs finished.

"No, it's not, and you have to realize that despite the fact that Reid is safe for the time being, my team is in almost the exact same boat. If we want to catch this man, and there's no question about it, we have to catch this man, we'll have to do it together." Hotch told him as if he was giving an order to Reid or Morgan.

"I've been on this since it started…I was there the day McGee's mother was killed… I kept those kids safe, for over a year, until Spencer finished High School, he left for college, McGee transferred from Georgetown to MIT, then Admiral McGee came back stateside and petitioned for reassignment…when he got it he took Sarah, and the two of them left for California… this bastard never left the area…" Gibbs was yelling, but whispering at the same time so that no one on the other side of the door could hear the argument.

"So you assumed that once they had all re-located, the Unsub would give up on hurting them…"

"Yes, and it worked…we never saw or heard hide nor hair of him since, not until tonight… He came back for a reason… Sarah finished her PhD in history earlier this year, came home and got a job teaching at Georgetown…maybe it's as simple as having all three of them back in the area, maybe there's more to it than that…I don't know. Either way, we need to know…"

"Then I think that's the first thing we need to figure out…the question is how, my team hasn't slept in almost twenty-four hours… They'll all want to keep going, no one's going to give up willingly, but there comes a point when a person becomes so exhausted that they can't think straight."

"My team's not much better… It was less than an hour between me sending 'em all home to get some sleep and McGee getting shot… We're not giving up on anything, we're retreating and we'll regroup after we've all gotten some sleep."

"So we're in agreement…?" Hotch asked.

Gibbs nodded, and the two men headed back in. As they entered, they were met with ten pairs of eyes looking at them curiously.

"Everyone is going home…it's late, no one's slept since the day before yesterday… if we're gonna this guy we need to be on top of our game, and we can't do that with everyone this worn out…" Hotch explained.

They all nodded, everyone understood the logic of it, but it was clear that nobody liked it…

Reid and Sarah looked at each other, then at Gibbs and Hotch.

"Where are we going?" They asked almost in unison.

"Sarah, go with the FBI agents…and Reid…you're going home with Tony…" Gibbs ordered with an intensity that allowed for no refusal.

However, Hotch was confused.

"Agent Gibbs, surely you don't doubt my team's capability in protecting one of own…?" Hotch asked.

Gibbs turned toward the FBI team leader with his arms crossed, staring Hotch down with his impenetrable blue eyes.

Hotch stayed silent, and glared back. A tense silence descended upon the room, as the two men fought a silent battle of wills.

"Of course not Hotchner… But the fact is that if the Hopper stalked him like he must have stalked McGee, he's going to expect him to be with one of your agents…he won't look for him with us… Sarah, on the other hand, is practically a stranger to you while she's practically one of us… seems to me, that one way to keep them both safe, is to switch, have them in protective custody where this bastard won't expect to find them…"

Realizing the logic of Gibbs's plan, he turned toward Sarah and McGee and nodded in the affirmative.

"But what about Tim? Who's going to stay with him? Who's going to be there when he comes out of surgery?" Reid asked.

"I'm staying." Gibbs replied, as though it had been a stupid question with an obvious answer. "For now, we have no idea what's gonna happen, but the minute there is anything to tell, I'll call ya…." He promised. "That goes for the rest of you too, I know no one wants to leave here without any word on McGee, but as soon as I know anything you'll know…"

"Now, everybody go home, try to get some rest, and let's regroup back here at eight am…" Hotch ordered.

Everyone except Gibbs, who wasn't leaving, donned bullet proof vests before exiting the building. Once outside, the group dispersed, Reid went with Tony and Sarah went with Morgan who took her to Prentiss's apartment.

…

[Prentiss's Apartment 2:30 AM]

Emily Prentiss, was an average looking woman in her late thirties, with long, dark brown hair. There was nothing about her that was obviously out of the ordinary, and yet, there was an inexplicable toughness to her demeanor that reminded Sarah of Ziva; her brother's friend and teammate, a former Mossad assassin turned NCIS agent.

Sarah found herself on Agent Prentiss's soft, gray couch, petting her affectionate black kitten named Sergio, who had jumped into Sarah's arms almost as soon as she'd arrived, while her host stalked about the apartment, making sure that all points on entry and exit were secured to her satisfaction. She could hear every footstep on the dark, hardwood floors, the crème colored walls acted as a sounding board, the echo was insane, and Sarah wondered how one got any sleep at all in this building.

Finally, Prentiss came and sat beside her, like with all of Spencer's teammates, Sarah had heard stories about Agent Prentiss over the years, in which he'd referred to her by her first name…however, her upbringing having wired her from an early age with an absolute respect for the chain of command, wouldn't let her follow her cousin's lead unless Agent Prentiss asked to be called by her first name.

"So…" She began. "You and Reid seem pretty close…"

Sarah nodded. "He's kinda like a big brother to me really…"

"It didn't take a profiler to see that…" Prentiss replied.

She waited for Sarah to respond, but she fell silent. Her fear hung heavy in the air around them like a dark storm cloud.

"Hey…you guys are gonna be ok, you know that right? You, and your brother…and Reid, we're not going to let anything happen you guys… we'll find this SOB, and this time we'll make sure he's gone for good… I promise…" she told her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Thanks Agent Prentiss…"

"Emily…"

[Dinozzo's Apartment, 5:30 AM]

Tony had dozed off into a half conscious stupor sitting in his favorite arm chair. He knew that he needed sleep, but it was kind of hard to sleep while on a protection detail. He needed to be able to wake up quickly if any unwelcome guests tried to come through that door. That's what he told himself anyway… but really, if he was honest with himself, there was no way in hell he was getting any real sleep until they finally got word about McGee.

Spencer on the other hand, sprawled out on the black leather sofa, and for once, sleeping like the dead. He too, had tried to wait up for word about McGee, but eventually, around two-thirty, he'd succumbed to his own exhaustion.

Tony shook himself out of his half-conscious state, and looked at his phone. _As soon as there's anything to tell, I'll call ya._ Gibbs had promised. Why hadn't he called yet? What was taking so long? It had been almost eight hours…

His eyes wandered to the mantle above his white brick fireplace. There, sat a framed picture of the three of them, Reid stood in the center, the ten year old version, with a sixteen year old Tony on one side, and a seventeen year old McGee on the other. The photo had been taken, by McGee's mother, just a few weeks before her murder, just a few weeks, before all of this madness had started. Why couldn't they just go back to that?

Finally, Tony's phone began to buzz. He looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Gibbs. As he picked it up to answer it, he heard a loud thud from across the room, and saw that Spencer had rolled over and actually fallen off the couch, and there he was now, on his hands and knees in front of it, tangled in the soft, purple throw blanket he'd instinctually pulled off the back at some point.

"What's going on?! Is that Gibbs?" he asked frantically.

"Yep…" Tony answered, then he swiped the screen to answer it.

"Morning Boss…"

"Morning Dinozzo… how's it going?"

"Everything's cool here boss…"

"You guys get any sleep?" Gibbs asked, his tone suggested that he was merely checking for obedience to is orders and that he hadn't asked out of actual concern, but Tony knew better.

"Nothing solid…" Tony admitted

"Figured…"

Out of the corner of his eye, Tony saw Spencer staring at him with a pleading look in his eye, begging for any news on his cousin's condition. In response, he gave his friend a small nod. _Hold on a sec, I'll ask._

"What's the word on McGee? Is he out of surgery yet?"

"Yep…they just took him to the recovery room…he's in rough shape but he'll make it…"

"Ok, thanks Boss…" Tony replied before hanging up.

"Well?" Reid demanded as soon as Tony was off the phone, with that same desperation for information written all over his face.

"McGee's just proven he's a lot tougher than he looks…he's gonna make it…" Tony told him.

Immediately, and without another word, Reid got up, strapped himself into his bullet proof vest, and made his way to the door. He did this so quickly that it was all Tony could do to grab his arm and hold him back before he made it clear out into the hallway.

"Hey…just where exactly do you think you're going?"

"Back to the hospital…" Reid replied, as though that should have been obvious.

"With a homicidal maniac after you? Not without me you're not…and we're not meeting everyone else there until eight…which means we don't have to leave here for another hour and a half…"

"Um, I just spent the last six hours not knowing if my cousin was going to live… if you think I'm waiting until we _have_ to report in you're out of your mind…"

At that, Tony sprung himself out of the chair.

"Point taken…let's go… I'm going first, stay close…keep your hand on your firearm until we actually make it to the car…" Tony replied, strapping back in to his own vest.

Reid stepped to the side to let Tony through, and they left exactly as Tony had instructed.


	3. Fear and Pain

**This update took a little longer for 2 reasons, 1 the school term has begun as of this past week, and 2 I had to decide whether I wanted this and the next section of the story to be one chapter or two. I decided to separate them, which is why this one, and chapter 4 will be shorter than chapters 1 and 2... as always, I love feedback so please feel free to comment, and enjoy.**

Chapter 3: Fear and Pain

[Bethesda Naval Medical Center 7:00 AM]

It was an hour and a half after Gibbs called, before Reid and Tony arrived back at Bethesda. They found Gibbs waiting for them in the Lobby, sitting in one of the modern, dark brown arm chairs in a small lounge area off the right of the front entrance.

"You two are here early…"

"What, did you actually expect us to wait until eight o'clock?" Tony asked. "After telling us McGee was finally out of surgery?" Tony asked.

"Nah… I knew you'd show as soon as possible after that.

"How is he?" Reid asked.

"Stable… he's still in rough shape though… I didn't really get all that technical garbage so I asked the doctor to wait until at least you two got here to explain exactly what happened to him…" Gibbs explained.

They nodded and followed him up to the third floor, where the intensive care unit was. Then they stopped at the curved counter on the edge of the unit that served as the nurses' station. The nurse manning in was a short, small-framed red head, whose curly orange hair was pulled back in a topknot on the back of her head. She had the bluest eyes that Reid had ever seen, and wore bright red lipstick that stood out lividly against her pastel pink scrubs. When they approached, she was engrossed in whatever she was working on, on the computer screen. They waited for a moment, then Tony cleared his throat to get her attention, and she looked up.

"What can I do for you gentlemen this morning…?" She asked once they had her attention.

"NCIS Special Agent Timothy McGee…where is he…? Gibbs demanded.

She turned back to her computer screen and looked him up.

"He's in room 316…but I'm sorry, you can't see him right now, visiting hours don't start till ten…you're three hours early…" She told them.

That's when Tony leaned in toward her with his arm on the counter. "Listen…Rhonda…" He began, reading her name badge. His tone was somewhere between flirting and threatening. "A friend of ours was shot last night…he didn't get out of surgery until this morning…we just want to know if and when he'll be ok… if you can't let us into see him, then who's his doctor? We're going to have to talk to them…"

Rhonda seemed to buy into Tony's flirty, bad boy act and she took a closer look at McGee's file.

"That would Dr. Siri…" She said, she glanced down the long hallway. "That's him down there, in front of his room…" She told them, waving him over.

Dr. Raj Siri was a short Indian man, about four feet, eleven inches with thick black hair and a Teddy Roosevelt-style mustache.

"Hello…" he said with a smile and a thick Indian accent.

"How is he…?" Reid demanded, too impatient to make time for any more pleasantries.

"De bullets, entered his chest, both ripping right through his right lung, in doing so they shattered three of his ribs on that side and de bone fragments, nicked several major blood vessels, no arteries, Thank God, but the vessels that spring from them. The surgery went as well as we could have hoped for… but make no mistake…it'll take time for him to recover from this…and until the internal injuries are fully healed, we will be watching him closely for infection. As long as we can avoid any additional problems as much as possible, he is going to be fine…"

"Wait… back up for a second doc…what exactly are you saying…?" Tony asked.

"I am saying that this friend of yours is a lucky man… he should be alright…" The doctor replied.

"Thank you…" They told him together.

Dr. Siri nodded and proceeded toward the elevator.

…

When everyone else arrived an hour later, they gathered in a relatively small visitors' lounge outside of the ICU, which looked a lot like sitting area in the hospital lobby, and while they waited for visiting hours to open up, they started nailing out their plan and building the very beginnings of a preliminary profile.

"According to our half of the files, it doesn't look like this Unsub _can_ pick a new family to target until every one of his previous targets is dead… unfinished business probably interferes either with him enjoying it or the compulsion itself, finishing what he started becomes the compulsion." Morgan began.

"That fits with our part of it too…" Gibbs agreed. "After he killed the last member of one family he'd disappear, at least of NIS's radar for a while before targeting another family, but if we paid attention to the civilian news, it became pretty clear what he was up to during that time…" Gibbs agreed.

"That also explains why this Unsub went dormant for so long…" Hotch pointed out, turning to Reid. "Not being able to get at you, your cousins, and your uncle must have thrown him off…"

"Who handled the case on our side?" Reid asked.

"Gideon was on that one…" Rossi replied. "He never came very close to catching this guy either…" He told them, turning toward Gibbs as if to say: _See? This isn't all your fault._

"That still doesn't explain why he chose now to resurface…why after all this time?" Gibbs asked.

"Maybe it's as simple as the fact that with Sarah home from grad school and Uncle Frank having moved back to Virginia recently we're finally all back in the same place…in his comfort zone…" Reid suggested.

"Well maybe, but none of you are particularly easy targets…" Tony pointed out. "Both you and McGee are federal agents, you're not vulnerable kids anymore and he had to know that attacking you guys would bring the wrath of a whole team of other agents, each… Then there's Sarah… girl's got three black-belts… I'd hate to be the fool that sneaks up on her in a dark alley…speaking of which, where is Sarah?" he asked.

"She's still with Emily, she decided to try and help from FBI headquarters by going over what she remembers from the day Mrs. McGee was killed…" Morgan answered.

"She actually volunteered to relive that?" Gibbs asked. His astonishment confused Morgan, sure, of course she didn't want to… who would? But it would help…and Sarah had to have realized that by this point…

"Is there something we don't know?" Hotch asked, guessing Morgan's thoughts.

Reid looked over at his boss, then at Gibbs, and back. "All three of us were there that day, all three of us went into the house… But, Sarah was the one who actually found Aunt Leah's body…out of the three of us…she's the only one who actually saw anything… Tim and I found later, when NCIS got there… the Unsub was still in our house, and when he realized there were witnesses, he knocked each of us out with a blunt force blow to the head…more specifically, my baseball bat…"

"You're kidding…" Hotch exclaimed.

Reid just shook his head.

"Tim and I didn't actually see him, or…her…her body…we just heard Sarah screaming…" He explained, his voice cracking like he was on the verge of tears. "There's one…one more detail that makes this even worse…Sarah…she…she's like me…she has an Eidetic memory... as if what she saw wasn't bad enough, she literally can't forget it…just like I can't forget the sound of her screaming…"

"She was only six…." Morgan exclaimed.

"No child should come home from school to find their mother's dead body…" Hotch said, more to himself than any one person.

Reid realized then, that it had only been a few months since Hotch's ex-wife, Hayley, who was also the mother of Hotch's four year-old son, had been killed by an Unsub who had attacked her to punish Hotch for hunting him.


End file.
